Representations of Indian Ocean Ecologies, Heritage and Kinship in Banaadiri Fishing Poems and Owuor's The Dragonfly Sea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article brings Yvonne Owuor’s 2019 novel The Dragonfly Sea into conversation with nine Banaadiri fishing poems called geeraarro, a form of classical Somali oral poetry in the maanso category. I explore the ways in which ideas of labour, kinship, and cultural heritage are presented in the fishing poems created over generations by an Indian Ocean coastal community as compared to a novel based on an Indian Ocean Island community, written by a Kenyan writer, and published by a major US publishing house. Working through oral narrative structures, the novel and the poems explore the relationship between littoral communities and Indian Ocean ecologies. I model how the comparative analysis of radically different forms of literature can illuminate the relationship between story, poetry and ecological sensibility. It breaks down the barriers between orality and literacy through the use of a range of analytical approaches including close reading, close listening, textual and performance analysis.